rape

American Heritage Dictionary:

rape¹

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(rāp)

The crime of forcing another person to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse.
The act of seizing and carrying off by force; abduction.
Abusive or improper treatment; violation: a rape of justice.

tr.v., raped, rap·ing, rapes.

To force (another person) to submit to sex acts, especially sexual intercourse; commit rape on.
To seize and carry off by force.
To plunder or pillage.

[Middle English, from rapen, to rape, from Old French raper, to abduct, from Latin rapere, to seize.]

raper rap'er n.

rape

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Unlawful sexual activity, usually sexual intercourse, carried out forcibly or under threat of injury and against the will of the victim. Though traditionally limited to attacks on women by men, the definition of rape has been broadened to cover same-sex attacks and attacks against those who, because of mental illness, intoxication, or other reasons, are incapable of valid consent. Statutory rape, or intercourse with a person younger than a certain age (generally from 12 to 18 years), has long been a serious crime in most jurisdictions. Rape is widely considered an expression of anger or aggression and a pathological assertion of power by the rapist. The psychological responses of victims vary but usually include feelings of shame, humiliation, confusion, fear, and rage. Many rape victims fail to report the crime, deterred by the prospect of a distressing cross-examination in court and the difficulty of proving a crime for which there usually are no witnesses. In the late 20th century there was a notable increase in the use of rape as a weapon of war, and in the 1990s the tribunal investigating crimes stemming from genocide in Rwanda ruled that rape and sexual violence constituted a form of genocide. assault and battery.

For more information on rape, visit Britannica.com.

Oxford Companion to the Body:

rape

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Rape has always been deemed a terrible crime. What has changed over time is the perception of what constitutes rape. Since the 1960s, rape is increasingly considered as sexual intercourse without consent. Not very long ago physical violence was taken to be intrinsic to the notion of rape; this is no longer so. It was also assumed that rape occurred predominantly between strangers. Now the idea of rape within marriage is no longer thought a contradiction in terms.

Defined as the unlawful carnal knowledge of a woman by force and against her will, rape was a capital crime already in early Anglo-Saxon times. It was deemed a crime even where legal codes said nothing of it. Thus the Chevalier de Jaucourt (1704-80 cited the argument which Cicero (106-43 bc) had made around 46 bc:

[e]ven if there was no written law against rape at Rome in the reign of Lucius Tarquinius, we cannot say on that account that Sextus Tarquinius did not break that eternal Law by violating Lucretia, the daughter of Tricipitinus! For reason did exist, derived from the Nature of the universe, urging men to right conduct and diverting them from wrong-doing, and this reason did not first become Law when it was written down, but when it first came into existence; and it came into existence simultaneously with the divine mind.

Throughout the ages, political theorists warned princes of the consequences of rape. Machiavelli (1469-1527), for one, stressed the political danger it presented. ‘Among the primary causes of the downfall of tyrants’, he argued, ‘Aristotle puts the injuries they do on account of women, whether by rape, violation or the breaking up of marriages … absolute princes and rulers of republics should not treat such matters as of small moment, but should bear in mind the disorders such events may occasion and look to the matter in good time, so that the remedy applied may not be accompanied by damage done to, or revolts against, their state or their republic.’

Amongst those who wrote about rape, some, like St Augustine (ad 354-430), stressed that the victim of rape was untainted by it. ‘There will be no pollution, if the lust is another's; if there is pollution, the lust is not another's, ’ he contended, adding; ‘While the mind's resolve endures, which gives the body its claim to chastity, the violence of another's lust cannot take away the chastity which is preserved by unwavering self-control.’ Critical of Roman culture and the importance it gave to honour, St Augustine criticized Lucretia for taking her life following her rape by Tarquin. Christian women, St Augustine argued, ‘did not take vengeance on themselves for another's crime.’ The public gaze did not unduly concern them, for they knew themselves to be chaste in the sight of God. In the seventeenth century, the jurist, Samuel Pufendorf (1632-94), was one of the many authors who reiterated St Augustine's point, although he stressed that this did not impinge on the right of women to kill their aggressors in self defence. Jean Barbeyrac (1674-1744) drew attention to the fact that, under several ancient legal systems, seducers were actually thought worse than rapists, because they violated not only the body of their victims, but effectively their mind as well, and hence exercised power over their whole person and over their family.

To recognize that we are by no means the first to attend to the issue of rape, is not to presume, however, that rape is a timeless or universal feature of social existence. Women have not always lived in fear of rape, at least not to the extent to which they now do in some parts of the Western world. Anthropological and historical studies reveal some societies and ages to be far more ‘rape-prone’ than others. In 1887 Friedrich Nietzsche wrote: ‘No act of violence, rape, exploitation, destruction, is intrinsically ‘unjust’, since life itself is violent, rapacious, exploitative, and destructive and cannot be conceived otherwise. Even more disturbingly, we have to admit that from the biological point of view legal conditions are necessarily exceptional conditions, since they limit the radical life-will bent on power and must subserve, as means, life's collective purpose, which is to create greater power constellations. To accept any legal system as sovereign and universal — to accept it, not merely as an instrument in the struggle of power complexes, but as a weapon against struggle (in the sense of Dühring's communist cliché that every will must regard every other will as its equal) — is an anti-vital principle which can only bring about man's utter demoralization and, indirectly, a reign of nothingness.’

Those who, like Cicero, endorse a natural rights theory, and who believe that natural law is the expression of God's will, have no difficulty in arguing what is wrong about rape. Nor should they face too much difficulty in making a case for a moral community which enforces certain ideals of conduct with respect to others and themselves. Those who don't ground their moral theories in a theocentric framework will have to come to terms with the fact that liberty is not an empty ideal, a licence for anything, and that the liberty of women is conditional on the struggle against their being considered in any way men please. Or as Nietzsche contended, that wills cannot be regarded as equal. The law is indeed an instrument of struggle; it is one of the means by which society struggles against barbarism. Other means must be deployed to make for a culture in which sex is conceived not as something individuals have a right to, nor independent of personal relationships and the duties and responsibilities they entail. This will not be the reign of nothingness, it will be the assertion of the will of civilized women, and men.

— Sylvana Tomaselli

Bibliography

Tomaselli, S. and Porter, R. (ed.) (1989). Rape: an historical and social enquiry. Blackwell, Oxford

Roget's Thesaurus:

rape

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verb

To compel (another) to participate in or submit to a sexual act: assault, force, ravish, violate. See sex/asexual.
To rob of goods by force, especially in time of war: depredate, despoil, havoc, loot, pillage, plunder, ransack, ravage, sack², spoliate, strip¹. Archaic harrow, spoil. See crimes, give/take/reciprocity.

Gale Encyclopedia of US History:

Rape

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Rape is a crime of sexual coercion, most commonly committed by men and against women. While we have limited information about the incidence of rape in early America, there is strong evidence to suggest that many more rapes occur today, when rates are adjusted for population, than occurred in the colonial period. Estimates are that in the early twenty-first century at least one in eight women in America has been a victim of forcible rape, a crime that can cause acute and long-term trauma of both physical and psychological dimensions.

Between the eighteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, American rape law changed surprisingly little. Since the mid-1970s, however, the law has been modified considerably, largely due to the persuasive efforts of reformers who claimed that traditional rape law manifested biases and inadequacies.

Definition and Punishment

Throughout England and colonial America, rape was defined as the carnal knowledge of a woman obtained forcibly and against her will. From the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, rape was treated primarily as a crime committed by a male stranger against another man, an outsider's trespass against the property of the husband or father of the woman who was raped. Even in the twentieth century, after America had abandoned the formal notion of married women as property, its influence remained for many years in the form of the marital exemption from rape laws that irrefutably presumed a woman's consent even to forced intercourse with her husband. Because female slaves were the exclusive property of their owners, they too fell outside the reach of rape law.

In early English common law, rape was a misdemeanor punishable by fine or imprisonment. A statute enacted in England in 1285 made rape a capital felony. Likewise, in the American colonies, rape was exclusively a capital felony through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. A rape conviction obtained in the past century, however, was more frequently punished by imprisonment.

Seventeenth Century

The law of seventeenth-and eighteenth-century England treated woman's accusations of rape with considerable skepticism. This attitude is captured in the oft-quoted language of the seventeenth-century English jurist Sir Matthew Hale in his History of the Pleas of the Crown: "It must be remembered, that [rape] is an accusation easily to be made and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused, the never so innocent."

Although the skeptical approach to rape complaints characterized American law in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, it did not take hold instantly in the American colonies. Prior to 1700, when almost all sexual assault cases in colonial American courts involved attempted rape of white women by assailants they knew, conviction rates were quite high and magistrates articulated a philosophy of deterrence, often imposing severe corporal punishments on men convicted of attempted rape. In this Puritan regime, women who came to court alleging sexual violence that they had resisted were generally believed to be telling the truth. In the mid-1600s, Governor Theophilus Eaton of New Haven Colony explained that "a young girle [would not] bee so impudent as to charge such a carriage upon a young man when it was not so," especially when she would be subjected to intensive judicial questioning (Dayton, p. 239).

Although her account of sexual violation was generally deemed truthful, a woman who failed to report a sexual assault promptly might also receive corporal punishment, at a level less than her assailant, for concealing the offense for an unreasonable period. A woman pregnant out of wedlock who claimed to have been raped would not benefit from the presumption of truthfulness, as it was thought in that era that a woman could not conceive a child during a rape. These women, like those who were found to have encouraged or submitted to a man's sexual advances, were punished for fornication.

Eighteenth to Twentieth Centuries

After 1700, colonial judges began consulting English legal sources more frequently and importing into American legal procedures the suspicion toward rape complaints that prevailed in England. In the 1700s, unlike the previous century, the noncapital crime of attempted rape by acquaintances was rarely prosecuted, and both rape indictments and conviction rates were low, especially if the complainant was an unmarried woman who had charged an acquaintance. As Zephaniah Swift, author of an eighteenth century treatise on Connecticut's laws warned, "the vindictive spirit of lewd women" has frequently caused charges of rape to be made from "motives of malice and revenge" (Dayton, p. 265).

When defendants were non-whites, the reluctance to sentence them to death for the crime of rape was [somewhat]diminished. In the eighteenth century, most of the men indicted for rape and virtually all who were convicted and executed were blacks, Indians, foreigners, or transients. Rape evolved into a crime committed primarily by strangers against white women. After 1700, father-daughter incest, no longer a capital felony, was the only crime of sexual violence for which local white men might expect harsh corporal punishment.

Racialized enforcement of rape law continued through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Forbidden sexual access to white women and stereotyped as sexual predators, African American men alleged to have raped white women were often vigorously prosecuted, even in cases where there was reason to doubt the allegation's veracity. This is the scenario that underlies the infamous Scottsboro Case in which nine young African American men were falsely accused of gang rape in 1931 in a small town in Alabama, tried without some of the most minimal protections of fair process, convicted, and in eight of the cases, sentenced to death. Ultimately the Supreme Court reversed all the convictions, but not before the Scottsboro defendants had served many years of imprisonment. Statistics show that African Americans constituted approximately 90 percent of the men executed for rape in the United States in the twentieth century. The Supreme Court highlighted this racialized pattern of punishment when it declared the death penalty for rape unconstitutional in the case of Coker v. Georgia (1977).

By contrast, when complainants were African American women, rape laws were notoriously underenforced. The institutionalized rape of black females by white slave owners as part of the system of slavery is well documented. Since a slave woman was considered "unrapeable" by law, she could not control her sexual accessibility and had no lawful options to resist being raped. Hence in 1855, when a young slave named Celia repeatedly resisted forcible sexual advances by Robert Newsom, her sixty-five-year-old Missouri slave master, finally striking him with a large stick that caused his death, she was tried for capital murder, convicted, and executed by hanging.

Reform Efforts

Model Penal Code. While late-nineteenth-century women's groups succeeded in their lobbying to raise the age limit for statutory rape, the first twentieth-century effort to modernize rape law came with the revision of the Model Penal Code (MPC) in the 1950s. The MPC is an influential model statute drafted by a group of learned legal experts. In the MPC revision, the rape victim no longer had to resist "to the utmost," as many states had required, to prove her nonconsent. Following this lead, states began to abolish resistance requirements. The MPC also established three grades of sexual assaults. Felony rape in the first degree was violent stranger rape. Violent acquaintance rape was a second-degree felony, and other kinds of sexual coercion constituted the third-degree felony of "gross sexual imposition." Adapting this model, many states have graded rape offenses by degree of severity in their statutory schemes.

Feminist Critiques. Subsequent reforms of traditional rape law came largely as a response to the critiques that began to emerge from the woman's movement in the 1970s. Feminist reformers [first] raised awareness of the extent of rape and the degree of harm it inflicts, then analyzed how, despite harsh penalties for rape, the law had failed to hold accountable most perpetrators. These reformers suggested that misunderstandings about the crime of rape were operating within traditional rape law and impeding its effectiveness.

Feminist writings portrayed the evidentiary and procedural rules unique to rape law as reflections of patriarchal skepticism about rape victims' claims. This led to such virulent attacks on victims' character and behavior in rape cases that the rate at which victims reported rape was reduced, as were the rates at which police arrested, prosecutors charged, and judges and juries convicted and sentenced. Feminists observed that a direct consequence of this preoccupation with false accusations was dramatic underprotection of victims of sexual assault.

In her book, Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No (1987), the law professor Susan Estrich asserts that only violent stranger rapes, which constitute a minority of rapes committed, are treated as serious crimes in the legal system. Estrich and others argue that disparate treatment of some rapes such as stranger rapes, and other rapes, such as acquaintance rapes, belies the fact that all of these actions violate the victim's bodily integrity and sexual autonomy.

Rape Law in the Early Twenty-First Century

Some rape law reforms have achieved broad acceptance. For example, state statutes tend to denominate rape by more descriptive terms such as "criminal sexual conduct" or "sexual assault," to define it in gender-neutral terms, and to encompass a broader array of conduct including oral and anal penetration. The age limit for statutory rape is typically the mid-teens, and the marital exemption from rape laws survives in a limited form only in a small number of states. Requirements that the victim's testimony be corroborated and that jurors be cautioned to give this testimony special scrutiny have largely disappeared. Rape shield laws that, with some exceptions, restrict admission of the victim's prior sexual conduct, have been widely adopted. Rarely is physical resistance formally required any longer to show nonconsent.

Other proposed reforms have received less widespread acceptance. For example, only a few states prohibit sexual coercion by certain types of fraud or by extortionate threats. A few states will not exonerate rape defendants who claim to have reasonably mistaken nonconsent for consent, while many others will. Whether and under what circumstances to permit mistakes about consent to provide a valid defense is an area of continuing controversy in rape law.

The impact of these reforms is unclear, as studies have detected only limited measurable effects from various reforms on victim behavior and case outcomes. This may reflect the fact that popular attitudes can be harder to change than written laws. Perhaps for similar reasons, the problem of rape in American penal institutions persists at high levels, with estimates that 350,000 sexual assaults are committed each year on male prisoners, typically by other prisoners. High levels of rape of female prisoners by male prison staff have also been reported.

Despite the fact that rape is largely an intraracial crime, studies suggest that cases involving black male suspects and white female victims still attract greatest attention from the courts and the press and are accorded the harshest punishment. This discriminatory treatment poses grave harm to African American men and contributes as well to cultural denial of the frequency and seriousness of other forms of rape. Studies also suggest that African American women remain least able of all rape complainants to obtain redress through legal process. Unfortunately, efforts to combat race bias in rape law enforcement are difficult to achieve through statutory reform. As with many of the other aspects of the problem of rape, they require deeper cultural change.

Two of the most famous rape trials of the late twentieth century, those of William Kennedy Smith in 1991 and heavyweight champion Mike Tyson in 1992, were based on allegations of date rape. In each trial, the victim testified that she was raped and the defendant testified that sex was consensual. In the Smith trial, the jury resolved credibility questions in favor of the defendant, finding Smith not guilty. In the Tyson trial, the jury resolved credibility questions in favor of the victim. As a result, Tyson was convicted and sentenced to a term of imprisonment. As American culture continues to struggle with issues of date rape and acquaintance rape, reform affecting cases such as these will likely continue.

Bibliography

Dayton, Cornelia Hughes. Women before the Bar: Gender, Law, and Society in Connecticut, 1639–1789. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1995.

Estrich, Susan. Real Rape: How the Legal System Victimizes Women Who Say No. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987.

LaFree, Gary D. Rape and Criminal Justice: The Social Construction of Sexual Assault. Belmont, Calif.: Wadsworth, 1989.

MacKinnon, Catharine A. Sex Equality: Rape Law. New York: Foundation Press, 2001.

Schulhofer, Stephen J. Unwanted Sex: The Culture of Intimidation and the Failure of Law. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998.

Spohn, Cassia, and Julie Horney. Rape Law Reform: A Grassroots Revolution and Its Impact. New York: Plenum, 1992.

Columbia Encyclopedia:

Rape

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rape, in law, the crime of sexual intercourse without the consent of the victim, often through force or threat of violence. The victim is deemed legally incapable of consenting if she or he is known to be mentally incompetent, intoxicated, drugged, or below the age of consent at the time of the rape. Such cases are known as statutory rape, and evidence of consent is not deemed relevant in court. Although the term rape has traditionally applied to the male use of force in sexual relations with females, applicable laws have been revised in many jurisdictions to include possibilities where a male is the victim.

Issues surrounding rape and the law have been fiercely debated for years in the United States, and recent efforts-particularly by feminist groups-have had marked success in expanding victims rights. One important reform, which has been in effect in most states in recent years, has been the removal of statutes requiring that rape victims physically resist the attack. Prior to this reform, victims of rape were required to display clear signs of injury in order to prove that they did not consent to sexual relations. Another reform has made marital rape a crime in many circumstances, with South Dakota becoming the first state to institute such law reforms in 1975. In the 1980s, "date rape," or acquaintance rape, became an important issue, particularly on college campuses. Victims of date rape contend that they were raped by an individual with whom they were acquainted. In many such cases, the establishment of guilt becomes difficult, particularly in cases where the victim displays no physical evidence of violence and there is only the testimony of the victim. In international law, rape was designated (2000) a war crime by the Yugoslav tribunal established by the United Nations at The Hague. Rape can cause profound psychological trauma in its victims.

Bibliography

See D. E. Russell, The Politics of Rape (1984); S. Tomaselli and R. Porter, ed., Rape (1986); Z. Adler, Rape on Trial (1987); S. Estrich, Real Rape (1987).

West's Encyclopedia of American Law:

Rape

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This entry contains information applicable to United States law only.

A criminal offense defined in most states as forcible sexual relations with a person against that person's will.

Rape is the commission of unlawful sexual intercourse or unlawful sexual intrusion. Rape laws in the United States have been revised over the years, and they vary from state to state.

Historically, rape was defined as unlawful sexual intercourse with a woman against her will. The essential elements of the crime were sexual penetration, force, and lack of consent. Women who were raped were expected to have physically resisted to the utmost of their powers or the man would not be convicted of rape. Additionally, a husband could have sex with his wife against her will without being charged with rape. Beginning in the 1970s, state legislatures and courts expanded and redefined the crime of rape to reflect modern notions of equality and legal propriety.

All states now define rape without reference to the sex of the victim and the perpetrator. However, the overwhelming majority of rape victims are women. A woman may be convicted of raping a man, a man may be convicted of raping a man, and a woman may be convicted of raping another woman. Furthermore, a spouse may be convicted of rape if he forces the other spouse to have nonconsensual sex. Many states do not punish the rape of a spouse as severely as the rape of a non-spouse.

Many states also have redefined lack of consent. Before the 1970s many courts viewed the element of force from the standpoint of the victim. A man would not be convicted of rape of a competent woman unless she had demonstrated some physical resistance. In the absence of physical resistance, courts usually held that the sex was consensual. Today, in many states, the prosecution can prove lack of consent by presenting evidence that the victim objected verbally to the sexual penetration or sexual intrusion.

Lack of consent is a necessary element in every rape. This does not mean that a person may make sexual contact with a minor or incapacitated person who actually consented. Lack of consent results from either forcible compulsion by the perpetrator or an incapacity to consent on the part of the victim. Persons who are physically or mentally helpless or who are under a certain age in relation to the perpetrator are deemed legally incapable of consenting to sex.

Most states choose to label the crime of rape as sexual assault. Sexual assault is divided into degrees, such as first-, second-, third-, and fourth-degree sexual assault. West Virginia provides a good illustration of how rape laws are written. In West Virginia a person is guilty of sexual assault in the first degree when that person engages in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person and either inflicts serious bodily injury upon anyone or employs a deadly weapon in the commission of the act (W. Va. Code § 61-8B-3 [1996]). Additionally, a person age fourteen years or older who engages in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person who is eleven years old or less is guilty of first-degree sexual assault. A person convicted of the crime of first-degree sexual assault in West Virginia faces imprisonment for at least fifteen years and not more than thirty-five years and may be fined from $1,000 to $10,000.

In West Virginia a person commits sexual assault in the second degree by engaging in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person without that person's consent and the lack of consent results from forcible compulsion. Forcible compulsion is (1) physical force that overcomes such earnest resistance as might reasonably be expected under the circumstances; (2) threat or intimidation, either express or implied, placing the victim or another person in fear of death, bodily injury, or kidnapping; or (3) fear by a person under sixteen years of age caused by intimidation by another person who is at least four years older than the victim.

Another way to commit second-degree sexual assault in West Virginia is to engage in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with someone who is physically helpless. The punishment for second-degree sexual assault is imprisonment for at least ten years but not more than twenty-five years and may include a fine of from $1,000 to $10,000.

Third-degree sexual assault is committed when a person engages in sexual intercourse or sexual intrusion with another person who is mentally defective or mentally incapacitated, or when a person age sixteen years or older has sex with a person who is less than sixteen years old and is at least four years younger than the defendant. Third-degree sexual assault is punishable in West Virginia by at least one, but no more than five, years in prison and may include a fine of not more than $10,000.

The provisions that refer to the age of the victim and the perpetrator are called statutory rape provisions. Statutory rape sections punish the perpetrator without regard to the consent of the victim. Such laws are in place in all states to enforce the generally accepted notions that children are incapable of consenting to sex because of their youth and innocence, and that sexual intercourse or intrusion of a child by an older person is socially unacceptable and harmful to the child. The term statutory rape also refers to the sections that punish sex with physically and mentally incapacitated persons, who are similarly unable to consent to sex.

Rape or sexual assault statutes carefully define the type of contact that constitutes rape. In Hawaii, for example, the term sexual penetration is defined as "vaginal intercourse, anal intercourse, fellatio, cunnilingus, analingus, deviate sexual intercourse, or any intrusion of any part of a person's body or of any object into the genital or anal opening of another person's body … however slight." Sexual contact is "any touching of the sexual or other intimate parts of a person … or of the sexual or other intimate parts of the actor by the person, whether directly or through the clothing or other material intended to cover the sexual or other intimate parts" (Haw. Rev. Stat. § 707-700 [1996]).

Most states punish lesser sexual intrusions with statutes on sexual abuse. Like sexual assault statutes, sexual abuse statutes are divided into degrees based on the nature of the contact. Sexual abuse consists of nonconsensual sexual contact with another person. Lack of consent is present if the victim is a minor or physically helpless, or if the victim was forcibly compelled to consent to the contact. A person convicted of sexual abuse may be fined and sentenced to a term in jail or prison. Because the crime does not involve penetration, the punishment for sexual abuse is less than that authorized for persons convicted of sexual assault.

A few states have eliminated the requirement that a competent adult rape victim physically resist the attacker. Physical resistance in some rape situations presents a greater danger to the victim. The states that have eliminated the physical requirement have found it to be unfair to require physical resistance on the part of the victim if such resistance risks greater injury. In Michigan, for example, force or coercion "includes but is not limited to" several situations, including where the actor coerces the victim through threats of force or violence and the victim believes that the actor can carry out the threats, and where the actor physically overcomes the victim through the actual application of physical force (Mich. Comp. Laws Ann. § 750.520a [West 1996]). Nowhere in Michigan's rape statutes is consent based on an analysis of the victim's physical resistance.

The states that have not eliminated physical resistance as a test for lack of consent have declined to do so for fear of convicting an adult who has sex with another adult without the knowledge that he or she is not consenting. Nevertheless, even in a state that has not eliminated the physical resistance requirement for competent adults, if the victim says "No" or otherwise verbally indicates lack of consent, the perpetrator still may be convicted of rape. This is because prosecutors have argued, and appeals courts have agreed, that some amount of force, no matter how slight, should be sufficient to fulfill the forcible compulsion element. The sexual penetration of a competent adult, for example, may be enough force to meet a forcible compulsion requirement, if the victim indicated a lack of consent.

Most states have so-called rape shield laws. These laws restrict or prohibit the use of evidence respecting the sexual history of rape victims and the victims of other sexual offenses. Before the enactment of rape shield laws in the 1970s and 1980s, rape trials often focused on the chastity of the victim to determine whether the victim was actually raped. Rape shield laws keep the focus of a rape prosecution on the actions of the defendant rather than the prior actions of the alleged victim.

See: Child Abuse; Domestic Violence; Feminist Jurisprudence; Husband and Wife; Pornography; Statutory Rape.

Oxford Dictionary of Biochemistry:

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or colza

a herbaceous plant, Brassica napus, of the mustard family, Cruciferae; it resembles a turnip, and the seeds yield valuable rapeseed oil.

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Rhymes:

raper

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See words rhyming with "raper."

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Rape

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This article is about a form of sexual assault. For other uses, see Rape (disambiguation).

Sexual assault
Classification and external resources
The rape of noblewoman Lucretia was a starting point of events that led to the overthrow of the Roman Monarchy and establishment of the Roman Republic. As a direct result of rape, Lucretia committed suicide. Many artists and writers were inspired by the story, including Shakespeare, Botticelli, Rembrandt, Dürer, Artemisia Gentileschi, Geoffrey Chaucer, Thomas Heywood and others.
ICD-9	E960.1
MedlinePlus	001955
eMedicine	article/806120
MeSH	D011902

Criminal law
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Actus reus Mens rea Causation Concurrence
Scope of criminal liability
Complicity Corporate Vicarious
Inchoate offenses
Attempt Conspiracy Solicitation
Offence against the person
Assault Battery False imprisonment Kidnapping Mayhem Sexual assault Homicide crimes Murder Felony murder Manslaughter Negligent homicide Vehicular homicide
Crimes against property
Arson Blackmail Burglary Embezzlement Extortion False pretenses Fraud Larceny Possessing stolen property Robbery Theft
Crimes against justice
Compounding Misprision Obstruction Perjury Malfeasance in office Perverting the course of justice
Defenses to liability
Defense of self Defence of property Consent Diminished responsibility Duress Entrapment Ignorantia juris non excusat Infancy Insanity Intoxication defense Justification Mistake (of law) Necessity Loss of Control (Provocation)
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v t e

Rape is a type of sexual assault usually involving sexual intercourse, which is initiated by one or more persons against another person without that person's consent. A person who commits an act of rape is known as a rapist. The act may be carried out by physical force, coercion, abuse of authority or with a person who is incapable of valid consent.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4] The term is most often defined in criminal law.^[2]^[4]

Internationally, the incidence of rapes recorded by the police during 2008 varied between 0.1 in Egypt per 100,000 people and 91.6 per 100,000 people in Lesotho with 4.9 per 100,000 people in Lithuania as the median.^[5] According to the American Medical Association (1995), sexual violence, and rape in particular, is considered the most under-reported violent crime.^[6]^[7] The rate of reporting, prosecution and convictions for rape varies considerably in different jurisdictions. The U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) estimated that 91% of U.S. rape victims are female and 9% are male, with 99% of the offenders being male.^[8] Rape by strangers is usually less common than rape by persons the victim knows,^[9]^[10]^[11]^[12]^[13] and several studies argue that male-male and female-female prison rape are quite common and may be the least reported forms of rape.^[14]^[15]^[16]

When part of a widespread and systematic practice, rape and sexual slavery are recognized as crimes against humanity and war crimes. Rape is also recognized as an element of the crime of genocide when committed with the intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a targeted ethnic group.

Definitions

Consent

In any allegation of rape, the absence of consent to sexual intercourse on the part of the victim is critical.^[4] Consent need not be expressed, and may be implied from the context and from the relationship of the parties, but the absence of objection does not of itself constitute consent. Lack of consent may result from either forcible compulsion by the perpetrator or an incapacity to consent on the part of the victim (such as persons who are asleep, intoxicated or otherwise mentally helpless).^[4]^[23] The law can also invalidate consent in the case of sexual intercourse with a person below the age at which they can legally consent to such relations with older persons. (See age of consent.) Such cases are sometimes called statutory rape or "unlawful sexual intercourse", regardless of whether it was consensual or not, as people who are under a certain age in relation to the perpetrator are deemed legally incapable of consenting to sex.^[4] Consent can always be withdrawn at any time, so that any further sexual activity after the withdrawal of consent constitutes rape.

Duress, in which the victim may be subject to or threatened by overwhelming force or violence, and which may result in absence of objection to intercourse, leads to the presumption of lack of consent.^[23] Duress may be actual or threatened force or violence against the victim or somebody else close to the victim. Even blackmail may constitute duress. Abuse of power may constitute duress. For instance, in Philippines, a man commits rape if he engages in sexual intercourse with a woman "By means of fraudulent machination or grave abuse of authority".^[24] The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in its landmark 1998 judgment used a definition of rape which did not use the word 'consent': "a physical invasion of a sexual nature committed on a person under circumstances which are coercive."^[25]

Marital rape, also known as spousal rape, is non-consensual sex in which the perpetrator is the victim's spouse. As such, it is a form of partner rape, of domestic violence, and of sexual abuse. Historically, and still in some countries, consent was assumed within the marriage contract, thus making spousal rape an impossibility; however, spousal rape is now repudiated by international conventions and increasingly criminalized. In 2006, it was estimated that marital rape could be prosecuted in at least 104 countries (in four of these countries, marital rape could be prosecuted only when the spouses were judicially separated),^[26] and since 2006 several other countries have outlawed spousal rape. In the US, spousal rape is illegal in all 50 states; the first state to outlaw it was South Dakota in 1975,^[27] and the last North Carolina in 1993.^[28] Other developing countries outlawed it in the 2000s. In many countries, it is not clear if marital rape may or may not be prosecuted under ordinary rape laws. However, in the absence of a spousal rape law it may be possible to bring prosecutions for what is effectively rape by characterizing it as an assault.

Types

Main article: Types of rape

There are several types of rape, generally categorized by reference to the situation in which it occurs, the sex or characteristics of the victim, and/or the sex or characteristics of the perpetrator. Different types of rape include but are not limited to: date rape, gang rape, marital rape, incestual rape, child sexual abuse, prison rape, acquaintance rape, war rape and statutory rape.^[29]

Causes and motivation

Further information: Causes of sexual violence

There is no single theory that conclusively explains the motivation for rape; the motives of rapists can be multi-factorial and are subject to debate. Several factors have been proposed: anger, a desire for power, sadism, as well as sexual gratification and evolutionary pressures.^[30]

Effects

For more details on this topic, see Effects and aftermath of rape.

Victims of rape can be severely traumatized by the assault and may have difficulty functioning as well as they had been used to prior to the assault, with disruption of concentration, sleeping patterns and eating habits, for example. They may feel jumpy or be on edge. After being raped, it is common for the victim to experience acute stress disorder, including symptoms similar to those of posttraumatic stress disorder, such as intense, sometimes unpredictable emotions, and they may find it hard to deal with their memories of the event.^[31]^[32] In the months immediately following the assault, these problems may be severe and upsetting and may prevent the victim from revealing their ordeal to friends or family, or seeking police or medical assistance. Additional symptoms of Acute Stress Disorder include:^[32]

depersonalization or dissociation (feeling numb and detached, like being in a daze or a dream, or feeling that the world is strange and unreal)
difficulty remembering important parts of the assault
reliving the assault through repeated thoughts, memories, or nightmares
avoidance of things, places, thoughts, and/or feelings that remind the victim of the assault
anxiety or increased alertness (difficulty sleeping, concentrating, etc.)
avoidance of social life or place of rape

For one-third to one-half of the victims, these symptoms continue beyond the first few months and meet the conditions for the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder.^[31]^[33]^[34] In general, rape and sexual assault are among the most common causes of PTSD in women.^[33]

Victim blaming

Main article: Victim blaming

"Victim blaming" is holding the victim of a crime to be in whole or in part responsible for the crime. In the context of rape, this concept refers to the Just World Theory and popular attitudes that certain victim behaviours (such as flirting, or wearing sexually provocative clothing) may encourage rape.^[35] In extreme cases, victims are said to have "asked for it", simply by not behaving demurely. In most Western countries, the defense of provocation is not accepted as a mitigation for rape.^[36] A global survey of attitudes toward sexual violence by the Global Forum for Health Research shows that victim-blaming concepts are at least partially accepted in many countries. In some countries, victim-blaming is more common, and women who have been raped are sometimes deemed to have behaved improperly. Often, these are countries where there is a significant social divide between the freedoms and status afforded to men and women.^[37] Amy M. Buddie and Arthur G. Miller, in a review of studies of rape myths, state:

Rape victims are blamed more when they resist the attack later in the rape encounter rather than earlier (Kopper, 1996), which seems to suggest the stereotype that these women are engaging in token resistance (Malamuth & Brown, 1994; Muehlenhard & Rogers, 1998) or leading the man on because they have gone along with the sexual experience thus far. Finally, rape victims are blamed more when they are raped by an acquaintance or a date rather than by a stranger (e.g., Bell, Kuriloff, & Lottes, 1994; Bridges, 1991; Bridges & McGr ail, 1989; Check & Malamuth, 1983; Kanekar, Shaherwalla, Franco, Kunju, & Pinto, 1991; L'Armand & Pepitone, 1982; Tetreault & Barnett, 1987), which seems to evoke the stereotype that victims really want to have sex because they know their attacker and perhaps even went out on a date with him. The underlying message of this research seems to be that when certain stereotypical elements of rape are in place, rape victims are prone to being blamed.

However, they also state that "individuals may endorse rape myths and at the same time recognize the negative effects of rape."^[38]

A number of gender role stereotypes can play a role in rationalization of rape. In the case of male-on-female rape, these include the idea that power is reserved to men whereas women are meant for sex and objectified, that women want forced sex and to be pushed around,^[39] and that male sexual impulses and behaviors are uncontrollable and must be satisfied.^[40] In the case of female-on-male rape, the victim may either be perceived as weak or, in cultures where men acquire status by sexual conquest, as fortunate.

Prosecution

Reporting

Sexual violence, and rape in particular, is considered the most under-reported violent crime (American Medical Association, 1995).^[7] Thus, the number of reported rapes is lower than both incidence and prevalence rates (Walby and Allen, 2004).^[41]

The legal requirements for reporting rape vary by jurisdiction — each U.S. state may have different requirements^[42] while other countries may have less stringent limits.^[43]

Investigation

Main article: Rape investigation

Since the vast majority of rapes are committed by persons known to the victim, the initiation and process of a rape investigation depends much on the victim's willingness and ability to report and describe a rape. Biological evidence such as semen, blood, vaginal secretions, saliva, and vaginal epithelial cells (typically collected by a rape kit) may be identified and genetically typed by a crime lab. The information derived from the analysis can often help determine whether sexual contact occurred, provide information regarding the circumstances of the incident, and be compared to reference samples collected from patients and suspects.^[44]

Conviction

In the United Kingdom, figures on reported rape cases show an ongoing decline in the conviction rate, putting it at an all time low of 5.6% in 2002. The government has expressed its concern at the year-on-year increase in attrition of reported rape cases, and pledged to address this "justice gap" (Home Office, 2002a).^[7]

Prevention and treatment

Main article: Initiatives to prevent sexual violence

As sexual violence affects all parts of society, the response to sexual violence is comprehensive. The responses can be categorized as: individual approaches, health care responses, community-based efforts and actions to prevent other forms of sexual violence.

Recovery from sexual assault is a complicated and controversial concept,^[45] but support groups, usually accessed by "umbrella" organizations (see List of anti-sexual assault organizations in the United States) are prevalent, including some on-line.

Sexual assault may be prevented by secondary school,^[46] college,^[47]^[48] and workplace education programs.^[49] At least one program for fraternity men produced "sustained behavioral change."^[47]^[50]

Statistics

Main article: Rape statistics

Australia

The Australian Women's Safety Survey conducted by the Bureau of Statistics in 1996 involved a random sample 6,300 women aged 18 and over. It produced incidence finding of 1.9 per cent for sexual assault in the previous 12 months. Known men accounted for over two-thirds of assailants (68%). Only 15% of the assaulted women in the sample reported to the police.^[58]

Cambodia

In Cambodia, rape is estimated by local and international NGOs to be common,^[59] but only a very small minority of these assaults are ever reported to authorities, due to the social stigma associated to being the victim of a sexual crime, and, in particular, to losing virginity before marriage (regardless of how this happened).^[60] From November 2008 to November 2009, police had recorded 468 cases of rape, attempted rape and sexual harassment, a 2.4 percent increase over the previous year.^[61] Breaking the Silence – Sexual Violence in Cambodia is a report produced by Amnesty International, and released in 2010, which examined the situation of sexual violence in Cambodia. The report found that, in the small minority of rapes which are reported, a very common response is for law-enforcement officials, including police and court staff, to arrange extralegal out-of-court 'agreements' between the victim and the perpetrator (or their families), in which the rapist pays a sum of money which is shared between the authorities and the victim (and her family), after which the victim has to withdraw any criminal complaint against the perpetrator, and public prosecutors close the case. When a rape is investigated, a complainant is generally expected to pay an extralegal sum of money to the authorities, to ensure that the court investigates the case, otherwise progress is slow, and it may take over two years for anything to happen. During the pre-trial period, there is always a risk that the perpetrator’s family will pay a bribe to secure his acquittal or reduced charge.^[62]

Canada

This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Please help to ensure that disputed facts are reliably sourced. See the relevant discussion on the talk page.

The most frequently cited research was conducted by Statistics Canada in 1992, which involved a national random sample of 12,300 women (Johnson and Sacco, 1995). The research found that over one in three women had experienced a sexual assault^{[dubious – discuss]} and that only 6% of sexual assaults were reported to the police.^[63]

Democratic Republic of the Congo

Main article: Sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

In eastern Congo, the prevalence and intensity of rape and other sexual violence is described as the worst in the world.^[64] It is estimated that there are as many as 200,000 surviving rape victims living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today.^[65]^[66] A new study says more than 400,000 women are raped in the Democratic Republic of Congo annually.^[67] War rape in the Democratic Republic of Congo has frequently been described as a "weapon of war" by commentators. Louise Nzigire, a local social worker, states that “this violence was designed to exterminate the population.” Nzigire observes that rape has been a "cheap, simple weapon for all parties in the war, more easily obtainable than bullets or bombs."

Norway

One in 10 women in Norway are raped.^[68]^[69]^[70]

South Africa

Main article: Sexual violence in South Africa

South Africa has some of the highest incidences of child and baby rape in the world with more than 67,000 cases of rape and sexual assaults against children reported in 2000, with welfare groups believing that unreported incidents could be up to 10 times higher.^[71] In 2001, a 9-month-old was raped and likely lost consciousness as the pain was too much to bear.^[72] Another 9-month-old baby was raped by six men, aged between 24 and 66, after the infant had been left unattended by her teenage mother. A 4-year-old girl died after being raped by her father. A 14-month-old girl was raped by her two uncles. In February 2002, an 8-month-old infant was reportedly gang raped by four men. One has been charged. The infant has required extensive reconstructive surgery. The 8-month-old infant's injuries were so extensive, increased attention on prosecution has occurred.^[73] A significant contributing factor for the escalation in child abuse is the widespread myth in HIV ravaged South Africa that having sex with a virgin will cure a man of AIDS.^[74]^[75]

One in three of the 4,000 women questioned by the Community of Information, Empowerment and Transparency said they had been raped in the past year.^[76] More than 25% of South African men questioned in a survey admitted to raping someone; of those, nearly half said they had raped more than one person, according to a new study conducted by the Medical Research Council (MRC).^[77]^[78] A 2010 study led by the government-funded Medical Research Foundation says that in Gauteng province, more than 37 percent of men said they had raped a woman. Nearly 7 percent of the 487 men surveyed said they had participated in a gang rape.^[79] Among children, a survey found 11% of boys and 4% of girls admitted to forcing someone else to have sex with them while in another survey among 1,500 schoolchildren in the Soweto township, a quarter of all the boys interviewed said that 'jackrolling', a term for gang rape, was fun.^[71]^[76]

United Kingdom

Main articles: Sexual offences in the United Kingdom and Rape in English law

According to a news report on BBC One presented in 12 November 2007, there were 85,000 women raped in the UK in the previous year, equating to about 230 cases every day. The 2006-07 British Crime Survey reports that 1 in every 200 women suffered from rape in that period. It also showed that only 800 people were convicted of rape crimes that same year, meaning that less than 1 in every 100 rape survivors were able to convict their attacker.^[80]^[81] According to a study in 2009 by the NSPCC on young people aged between 13-18, a third of girls and 16% of boys have experienced sexual violence and that as many as 250,000 teenage girls are suffering from abuse at any one time.^[82]^[83] 12% of boys and 3% of girls reported committing sexual violence against their partners.^[84]

A survey done by a third party research group on behalf of rape crisis centre The Havens found that almost half of UK men between the age of 18 and 25 do not consider it rape to force a woman who has changed her mind to continue sex. Almost 1 in 4 men claimed that it wasn't rape even if a woman had said "no" at the start. A further 1 in 4 would try to have sex with someone they knew was unwilling. 5% would attempt to have sex if the woman was asleep and 6% if she were drunk.^[85]^[86]

United States

Main article: Rape in the United States

U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics (1999) estimated that 91% of rape victims are female and 9% are male, with 99% of the offenders being male.^[8] Some types of rape are excluded from official reports altogether (the FBI's definition, for example, used to exclude all rapes except forcible rapes of females), because a significant number of rapes go unreported even when they are included as reportable rapes, and also because a significant number of rapes reported to the police do not advance to prosecution.^[87] According to United States Department of Justice document Criminal Victimization in the United States, there were overall 191,670 victims of rape or sexual assault reported in 2005.^[88] Only 16% of rapes and sexual assaults are reported to the police (Rape in America: A Report to the Nation. 1992 and United Nations Populations Fund, 2000a).^[89]^[90] Factoring in unreported rapes, about 5% of rapists will ever spend a day in jail.^[91] One of six U.S. women has experienced an attempted or completed rape.^[92] More than a quarter of college age women report having experienced a rape or rape attempt since age 14.^[93]

The U.S. Department of Justice compiles statistics on crime by race, but only between and among people categorized as black or white. The Uniform Crime Reports classifies most Hispanics into the "white" category.^[94] There were 194,270 white and 17,920 black victims of rape or sexual assault reported in 2006. According to Anthony Walsh, "Gary LaFree's rape data for the 45-year period revealed that blacks were arrested for rape an average of 6.52 times more often than whites."^[94]

Drug use, especially alcohol, is frequently involved in rape. A study (only of rape victims that were female and reachable by phone) reported detailed findings related to tactics. In 47% of such rapes, both the victim and the perpetrator had been drinking. In 17%, only the perpetrator had been. 7% of the time, only the victim had been drinking. Rapes where neither the victim nor the perpetrator had been drinking were 29% of all rapes.^[9] Contrary to widespread belief, rape outdoors is rare. Over two thirds of all rapes occur in someone's home. 31% occur in the perpetrators' homes, 27% in the victims' homes and 10% in homes shared by the victim and perpetrator. 7% occur at parties, 7% in vehicles, 4% outdoors and 2% in bars.^[9] From 2000–2005, 59% of rapes were not reported to law enforcement.^[10]^[95] One factor relating to this is the misconception that most rapes are committed by strangers.^[11]^[10] In reality, studies indicate the following varying numbers:

In a 2012 news story, The New York Times reported, " ... according a survey by the Alaska Federation of Natives, the rate of sexual violence in rural villages like Emmonak is as much as 12 times the national rate. And interviews with Native American women here and across the nation’s tribal reservations suggest an even grimmer reality: They say few, if any, female relatives or close friends have escaped sexual violence."^[96]

Source:	Current or Former Intimate Partner	Another Relative	Friend or Acquaintance	Stranger
US Bureau of Justice Statistics	26%	7%	38%	26%
Australian Government Statistics^[12]	56%	10%	27%	8%
UK Home Office (for comparison)^[13]	45.4%	13.9%	29.6%	11%

False accusation

Main article: False accusation of rape

This Section may contain parts that are misleading. Please help clarify this article according to any suggestions provided on the talk page.

This section's factual accuracy is disputed. Please help to ensure that disputed facts are reliably sourced. See the relevant discussion on the talk page.

The largest and most rigorous study was commissioned by the British Home Office and based on 2,643 sexual assault cases (Kelly, Lovett, and Regan, 2005). Of these, 8% were classified by the police department as false reports. However, the researchers noted that some of these classifications were based simply on the personal judgments of the police investigators and were made in violation of official criteria for establishing a false allegation. Closer analysis of this category applying the Home Office counting rules for establishing a false allegation and excluding cases where the application of the cases where confirmation of the designation was uncertain reduced the percentage of false reports to 3%. The researchers concluded that "one cannot take all police designations at face value" and that "[t]here is an over-estimation of the scale of false allegations by both police officers and prosecutors." Moreover, they added:

The interviews with police officers and complainants’ responses show that despite the focus on victim care, a culture of suspicion remains within the police, even amongst some of those who are specialists in rape investigations. There is also a tendency to conflate false allegations with retractions and withdrawals, as if in all such cases no sexual assault occurred. This reproduces an investigative culture in which elements that might permit a designation of a false complaint are emphasized (later sections reveal how this also feeds into withdrawals and designation of 'insufficient evidence'), at the expense of a careful investigation, in which the evidence collected is evaluated.^[97]^[98]

Another large-scale study was conducted in Australia, with the 850 rapes reported to the Victoria police between 2000 and 2003 (Heenan & Murray, 2006). Using both quantitative and qualitative methods, the researchers examined 812 cases with sufficient information to make an appropriate determination, and found that 2.1% of these were classified by police as false reports. All of these complainants were then charged or threatened with charges for filing a false police report.^[99]

FBI reports consistently put the number of "unfounded" rape accusations around 8%. Two notable examples are Tawana Brawley rape allegations and the Duke lacrosse case.^[100] The unfounded rate is higher for forcible rape than for any other Index crime. The average rate of unfounded reports for Index crimes is 2%.^[101] However, “unfounded” is not synonymous with false allegation^[102] and as Bruce Gross of the Forensic Examiner explains,

This statistic is almost meaningless, as many of the jurisdictions from which the FBI collects data on crime use different definitions of, or criteria for, "unfounded." That is, a report of rape might be classified as unfounded (rather than as forcible rape) if the alleged victim did not try to fight off the suspect, if the alleged perpetrator did not use physical force or a weapon of some sort, if the alleged victim did not sustain any physical injuries, or if the alleged victim and the accused had a prior sexual relationship. Similarly, a report might be deemed unfounded if there is no physical evidence or too many inconsistencies between the accuser's statement and what evidence does exist. As such, although some unfounded cases of rape may be false or fabricated, not all unfounded cases are false.^[52]

It is most commonly reported that around 2% of reported rape cases are false accusations. In an academic review in the Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review, Edward Greer could not find primary sources for this often repeated figure.^[103] A 2006 review by Philip Rumney in the Cambridge Law Journal found several that supported that the figure is around 2%, but only one small (545-case) study that could be a source of the 2% figure, ^[104] and expressed doubt about each's methodology.^[105]

Purdue sociologist Eugene Kanin (1994) summarized rape reports in a small Midwestern town between 1978 and 1987 and found that the police department determined 41% of the 109 sexual assault reports to be false. The police department made a "serious offer to polygraph" all rape complainants. David Lisak (2007) argues that Kanin’s is not a research study, because it only puts forth the opinions of the police officers without any further investigation on his part and that it is "a provocative opinion piece, but it is not a scientific study of the issue of false reporting of rape" and that it "certainly should never be used to assert a scientific foundation for the frequency of false allegations."^[106]^[107] Similarly, John Bancroft states that a search of the literature on false rape reports reveals that Kanin's figure of 41% false rape reports is regarded as unusually high.^[108] Kanin claimed that "the complainant must admit that no rape had occurred. She is the sole agent who can say that the rape charge is false." Lisak accused Kanin of presenting the claims of the police department as fact, without investigating further:

"Kanin describes no effort to systemize his own 'evaluation' of the police reports—for example, by listing details or facts that he used to evaluate the criteria used by the police to draw their conclusions. Nor does Kanin describe any effort to compare his evaluation of those reports to that of a second, independent research— providing a ‘reliability’ analysis. This violates a cardinal rule of science, a rule designed to ensure that observations are not simply the reflection of the bias of the observer [...] [Dr. Kanin] simply reiterates the opinions of the police officers who concluded that the cases in question were 'false allegations.'"

Lisak later performed his own study, published in 2010 in Violence Against Women, which found a false allegation rate of 5.9%.

History

Main article: History of rape

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In ancient history, rape was viewed less as a type of assault on the female, than a serious property crime against the man to whom she belonged, typically the father or husband. The loss of virginity was an especially serious matter. The damage due to loss of virginity was reflected in her reduced prospects in finding a husband and in her bride price. This was especially true in the case of betrothed virgins, as the loss of chastity was perceived as severely depreciating her value to a prospective husband. In such cases, the law would void the betrothal and demand financial compensation from the rapist, payable to the woman's household, whose "goods" were "damaged".^[109] Under biblical law, the rapist might be compelled to marry the unmarried woman instead of receiving the civil penalty if her father agreed. This was especially prevalent in laws where the crime of rape did not include, as a necessary element, the violation of the woman's body, thus dividing the crime in the current meaning of rape and a means for a man and woman to force their families to permit marriage. (See Deuteronomy 22:28–29.)

The word rape itself originates from the Latin verb rapere: to seize or take by force. The word originally had no sexual connotation and is still used generically in English. The history of rape, and the alterations of its meaning, is quite complex. In Roman law, rape, or raptus was classified as a form of crimen vis, "crime of assault."^[110]^[111] The concept of raptus was applied to the abduction of a woman against the will of the man under whose authority she lived, and sexual intercourse was not even a necessary element. Like theft or robbery, rape was originally considered a "private wrong" iniuria privita, a crime between the abductor and the legal guardian of the woman in question. It was made into a "public wrong" iniuria publica by the Roman Emperor Constantine.^[112]^[113] Augustus Caesar enacted reforms for the crime of rape under the assault statute Lex Iulia de vi publica, which bears his family name, Iulia. It was under this statute rather than the adultery statute of Lex Iulia de adulteriis that Rome prosecuted this crime.^[114] Emperor Justinian confirmed the continued use of the statute to prosecute rape during the 6th century in the Eastern Roman Empire.^[115] By late antiquity, the general term raptus had referred to abduction, elopement, robbery, or rape in its modern meaning. Confusion over the term led ecclesial commentators on the law to differentiate it into raptus seductionis (elopement without parental consent) and raptus violentiae (ravishment). Both of these forms of raptus had a civil penalty and possible excommunication for the family and village receiving the abducted woman, although raptus violentiae also incurred punishments of mutilation or death.^[116]

The Bulgarian martyresses, a painting depicting the rape of Bulgarian women by Ottoman troops during the April Uprising of 1876.

From the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome into the Colonial period, rape along with arson, treason and murder was a capital offense. "Those committing rape were subject to a wide range of capital punishments that were seemingly brutal, frequently bloody, and at times spectacular." In the 12th century, kinsmen of the victim were given the option of executing the punishment themselves. "In England in the early fourteenth century, a victim of rape might be expected to gouge out the eyes and/or sever the offender's testicles herself."^[117] Despite the harshness of these laws, actual punishments were usually far less severe: in late Medieval Europe, cases concerning rapes of marriageable women, wives, widows, or members of the lower class were rarely brought forward, and usually ended with only a small monetary fine or a marriage between the victim and the rapist. ^[112] Adult women were often extremely reluctant to bring up charges of rape: public admission of having been raped was severely damaging to one's social standing, courts tended to be skeptical of the charges, conviction rates were low, and, in the event that the accusation could not be proved, the victim could then be accused of committing adultery with the rapist (traditionally a serious offense that could have been punished by mutilation^[118] or even death.) Certain classes of women, such as prostitutes, were banned from raising accusations of rape altogether.^[112]^[119]

The ius primae noctis ("law of the first night") is a term now popularly used to describe an alleged legal right allowing the lord of an estate to take the virginity of his serfs' maiden daughters. Little or no historical evidence has been unearthed from the Middle Ages to support the idea that such a right ever actually existed.^[120]^[121]

The medieval theologian Thomas Aquinas argued that rape, though sinful, was much less unacceptable than masturbation or coitus interruptus, because it fulfilled the procreative function of sex, while the other acts violated the purpose of sex.^[122]^[123]^[124]

The legal view of the concept of rape began changing gradually in the late Middle Ages. 12th century Codex of Gratian clearly distinguished between abduction and rape, and considered the intercourse without consent of one of the partners a necessary element. By the mid-1500s, European courts began recognizing the concept of age of consent, namely, that minors under a certain age, such as 6 or 7, would be incapable of consenting to intercourse.^[112]

In Medieval Europe, a woman could be legally married by her parents to a stranger without her consent, and, once she was married, she could no longer refuse to consent to sex: the medieval concept of rape did not allow for the possibility of being raped by one's husband. In 1563, the Council of Trent expressly declared that legal Catholic marriages had to be done with consent of both parties, but did not require parental consent, essentially declaring forced marriages invalid.^[125] This was not universally accepted: for example, in France, women were not granted the right to marry without parental consent until 1793.^[126]

During the Colonization of the Americas, the rape of native women was not held to be a crime under Spanish Law as the persons in question were Pagan and not Christian.^[127]^[128] Swiss explorer Johann Burckhardt wrote: "I frequently witnessed scenes of the most shameless indecency, which the traders, who were the principal actors, only laughed at. I may venture to state, that very few female slaves who have passed their tenth year, reach Egypt or Arabia in a state of virginity."^[129]

Until fairly recently, the criminal justice system of many countries was widely regarded as unfair to sexual assault victims. Both sexist stereotypes and common law combined to make rape a "criminal proceeding on which the victim and her behavior were tried rather than the defendant".^[130] Additionally, gender neutral laws have combated the older perception that rape never occurs to men,^[131] while other laws have eliminated the term altogether.^[132]

Since the 1970s, many changes have occurred in the perception of sexual assault due in large part to the feminist movement and its public characterization of rape as a crime of power and control rather than purely of sex. In some countries the women's liberation movement of the 1970s created the first rape crisis centers. One of the first two rape crisis centers, the D.C. Rape Crisis Center, opened in 1972. It was created to promote sensitivity and understanding of rape and its effects on the victim. In 1960 law enforcement cited false reporting rates at 20%. By 1973 the statistics had dropped to 15%.

War rape

Main article: War rape

In 1998, Judge Navanethem Pillay of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda said:

From time immemorial, rape has been regarded as spoils of war. Now it will be considered a war crime. We want to send out a strong message that rape is no longer a trophy of war.^[133]

La vuelta del malón (The return of the raiders) by Ángel Della Valle (1892).

Rape, in the course of war, dates back to antiquity, ancient enough to have been mentioned in the Bible.^[134] The Israelite, Persian, Greek and Roman armies reportedly engaged in war rape.^[135] The Mongols, who established the Mongol Empire across much of Eurasia, caused much destruction during their invasions.^[136] Documents written during or after Genghis Khan's reign say that after a conquest, the Mongol soldiers looted, pillaged and raped.^[137] Rogerius, a monk who survived the Mongol invasion of Hungary, pointed out not only the genocidal element of the occupation, but also that the Mongols especially "found pleasure" in humiliating women.^[138]

The systematic rape of as many as 80,000 women by the Japanese soldiers during the six weeks of the Nanking Massacre is an example of such atrocities.^[139] During World War II an estimated 200,000 Korean and Chinese women were forced into prostitution in Japanese military brothels, as so-called "Comfort women".^[140] French Moroccan troops known as Goumiers committed rapes and other war crimes after the Battle of Monte Cassino. (See Marocchinate.)^[141] Rape by soldiers was common in many areas occupied by the Red Army.^[142]

It has been alleged that an estimated 200,000 women were raped during the Bangladesh Liberation War by the Pakistani army^[143] (though this has been disputed by many including the Indian academic Sarmila Bose ^[144]), and that at least 20,000 Bosnian Muslim women were raped by Serb forces during the Bosnian War.^[145] Wartime propaganda often alleges, and exaggerates, mistreatment of the civilian population by enemy forces and allegations of rape figure prominently in this. As a result, it is often very difficult, both practically and politically, to assemble an accurate view of what really happened.

Commenting on rape of women and children in recent African conflict zones UNICEF said that rape was no longer just perpetrated by combatants but also by civilians. According to UNICEF rape is common in countries affected by wars and natural disasters, drawing a link between the occurrence of sexual violence with the significant uprooting of a society and the crumbling of social norms. UNICEF states that in Kenya reported cases of sexual violence doubled within days of post-election conflicts. According to UNICEF rape was prevalent in conflict zones in Sudan, Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo.^[146] It is estimated that more than 200,000 females living in the Democratic Republic of the Congo today have been raped in recent conflicts.^[65]^[66]^[147] Some estimate that around 60% of combatants in Congo are HIV-infected.^[148]

In 1998, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda found that systematic rape was used in the Rwandan genocide. The Tribunal held that "sexual assault [in Rwanda] formed an integral part of the process of destroying the Tutsi ethnic group and that the rape was systematic and had been perpetrated against Tutsi women only, manifesting the specific intent required for those acts to constitute genocide."^[149] An estimated 500,000 women were raped during the 1994 Rwandan Genocide.^[150]

The Rome Statute, which defines the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court, recognizes rape, sexual slavery, enforced prostitution, forced pregnancy, enforced sterilization, "or any other form of sexual violence of comparable gravity" as crime against humanity if the action is part of a widespread or systematic practice.^[151]^[152]

Rape was first recognized as crime against humanity when the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia issued arrest warrants based on the Geneva Conventions and Violations of the Laws or Customs of War. Specifically, it was recognised that Muslim women in Foča (southeastern Bosnia and Herzegovina) were subjected to systematic and widespread gang rape, torture and enslavement by Bosnian Serb soldiers, policemen and members of paramilitary groups after the takeover of the city in April 1992.^[153]

The indictment was of major legal significance and was the first time that sexual assaults were investigated for the purpose of prosecution under the rubric of torture and enslavement as a crime against humanity.^[153] The indictment was confirmed by a 2001 verdict of the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia that rape and sexual enslavement are crimes against humanity. Amnesty International stated that the ruling challenged the widespread acceptance of the torture of women as an intrinsic part of war.^[154]

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^ Comfort Women Were 'Raped': U.S. Ambassador to Japan. chosun.com. March 19, 2007
^ "Italian women win cash for wartime rapes". Listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu. http://listserv.acsu.buffalo.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind9705&L=twatch-l&D=1&O=D&F=P&P=1025. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
^ Beevor, Antony (2002-05-01). "'They raped every German female from eight to 80'". London: guardian.co.uk. http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,707835,00.html. Retrieved 2008-01-01.
^ Smith, Laura (2004-12-08). "How did rape become a weapon of war?". BBC News. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/4078677.stm. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
^ "EDITORIAL: New impartial evidence debunks 1971 rape allegations against Pakistan Army". Daily Times (Pakistan). 2005-07-02. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_2-7-2005_pg3_1. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
^ Jahn, George (2005-05-31). "Bosnian kids born of war rape asking questions". MSNBC. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8007740/. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
^ "Africa war zones’ ‘rape epidemic’". BBC News. February 13, 2008. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/7242421.stm. Retrieved January 4, 2010.
^ "The Greatest Silence: Home". HBO. http://www.hbo.com/docs/programs/thegreatestsilence/. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
^ "Rape as a weapon of war". San Francisco Chronicle. June 26, 2005.
^ Fourth Annual Report of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to the General Assembly (September, 1999), accessed at [6].
^ "Violence Against Women: Worldwide Statistics". Amnesty International. Archived from the original on 2007-12-12. http://web.archive.org/web/20071212040642/http://www.amnesty.org.nz/web/pages/home.nsf/0/e57ea3f05f6aa848cc256e460012f365?OpenDocument.
^ As quoted by Guy Horton in Dying Alive – A Legal Assessment of Human Rights Violations in Burma April 2005, co-Funded by The Netherlands Ministry for Development Co-Operation. See section "12.52 Crimes against humanity", p. 201. He references RSICC/C, Vol. 1, p. 360
^ "Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court". Untreaty.un.org. http://untreaty.un.org/cod/icc/statute/romefra.htm. Retrieved 2010-12-31.
^ ^a ^b Rape as a Crime Against Humanity. Haverford College
^ Bosnia-Herzegovina : Foca verdict – rape and sexual enslavement are crimes against humanity. Amnesty International. 22 February 2001

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v t e Rape

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Effects and motivations	Effects and aftermath of rape · Rape trauma syndrome · Motivation for rape · Sociobiological theories · Rape culture

Laws	Statutory rape · Rape shield law · False accusation of rape · Rape and punishment · Rape investigation · Rape kit

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Translations:

Rape

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Dansk (Danish)
1.
n. - voldtægt, overfald
v. tr. - begå voldtægt mod, overfalde

2.
n. - [bot.] raps

3.
n. - rape (en af seks oprindelige administrative enheder i Sussex)

4.
n. - druepresserester (til fremstilling af vineddike)

Nederlands (Dutch)
verkrachten, verkrachting, aanranding, koolzaad, een van vroegere onderdelen van Sussex

Français (French)
1.
n. - (Jur, fig) viol
v. tr. - violer

idioms:

rape crisis centre centre d'assistance au victimes d'un viol

2.
n. - (Agric, Bot) colza

3.
n. - (GB, Admin) ancienne division de la région du Sussex

4.
n. - lie-de vin

Deutsch (German)
1.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps
v. - vergewaltigen, notzüchtigen

idioms:

rape crisis centre Beratungszentrum für Frauen, die Opfer einer Vergewaltigung geworden sind

2.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps

3.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps

4.
n. - Vergewaltigung, Notzucht, (bot.) Raps

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - βιασμός, βίαιη απαγωγή, λεηλασία
v. - βιάζω, απάγω, διαρπάζω, διαγουμίζω

Italiano (Italian)
stuprare, violentare, stupro, violenza carnale, ratto, rapimento, offesa, colza, (pl.) vinaccia, recipiente per l'aceto

Português (Portuguese)
n. - estupro (m), violação (f), bagaço (m)
v. - estuprar

Русский (Russian)
изнасиловать, изнасилование, полевая капуста

Español (Spanish)
1.
n. - violación, asolamiento, saqueo
v. tr. - violar, saquear, asolar

idioms:

rape crisis centre centro para víctimas de violación

2.
n. - colza, tipo de repollo

3.
n. - cualquiera de las seis antiguas divisiones de Sussex

4.
n. - orujos

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - våldtäkt, skövling
v. - våldta, röva bort

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
1. 强奸, 洗劫, 强夺

2. 油菜

3. 葡萄渣

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
1.
n. - 葡萄渣

2.
n. - 強姦, 洗劫, 強奪
v. tr. - 強姦, 洗劫, 強奪

3.
n. - 油菜

한국어 (Korean)
1.
n. - 강간, 강탈
v. tr. - 강탈하다, 강간하다

2.
n. - 평지(양상추과의 식물)

3.
n. - 영국 서섹스주의 6개 행정구역 중 하나

4.
n. - 포도 찌꺼기

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 婦女暴行, 強姦, セイヨウアブラナ
v. - 暴行する, 強姦する

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) اغتصاب, سلب (فعل) يغتصب, يسلب‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮אונס, תקיפה, חטיפה, שוד‬
v. tr. - ‮אנס, תקף, הרס, שדד, חטף‬
n. - ‮צמח ממשפחת הכרוביים‬
n. - ‮כל אחד משש נפות העתיקות של מחוז סאסקס (דרום אנגליה)‬
n. - ‮פסולת ענבים המשמשת להכנת חומץ, כלי להכנת חומץ, לפתית, גפת‬

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